On Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:45:03 +0200 (CEST), Igmar Palsenberg
<maillist@chello.nl> wrote:
>
>> >I presume your driver doesn't mind if this image is unavailable.
>> >If not, you'll need to provide a open source image to use in place
>> >of your proprietary one.
>>
>> Linus, please confirm.
>>
>> Firmware for cards can be proprietary. It can either be installed by a
>> userspace utility on startup (nothing to do with the kernel) or it can
>> be installed by the kernel driver for the card during initialization.
>> In the latter case, the image must be supplied in text format and
>> converted to binary, no binary files in the kernel tarball.
>
>Every closed source piece of software is unacceptable in a standard kernel
>:
>
>-hh We can't debug it
>- We depend on the guys / girls that maintain the binary image
>- It's a security risk.
>
Aren't there other examples where firmware is supplied in a struct
which is initialized to the needed binary values? Seems like Linux
doesn't need every bit of source (probably for some completely other
processor or ASIC, maybe written in FORTH) included as part of the
kernel.
johnh
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